Milan Kundera
Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (2009)

In the clockwork of the head, two cogwheels turn opposite each other.  On the one, images; on the other, the body's reactions.  The cog carrying the image of a naked woman meshes with the corresponding erection-command cog.  But when, for one reason or another, the wheels go out of phase and the excitement cog meshes with a cog bearing the image of a swallow in flight, the penis rises at the sight of a swallow.\n\n And what has love in common with all this?  Nothing. If a cogwheel in Tomas's head goes out of phase and he is excited by seeing a swallow, it has absolutely no effect on his love for Tereza.\n\n If excitement is a mechanism our Creator uses for His own amusement, love is something that belongs to us alone and enables us to flee the Creator.  Love is our freedom.